This was such a fun book, I loved the magical element of it and how we were lead along on the what ifs of Millie's life. I was definitely entertained, A clever well thought out plot line that I haven't been able to stop thinking about since!

A really promising book that was based on a great idea. Fell down a little in the execution. At times it felt a bit rushed and I wanted to see more of the ideas explored a bit.

This was a good romance. I had a hard time getting invested in the characters but I liked the tropes and how everything came together in the end. Worth a read!

I love a good magical realism book. This one had a great premise and was quite fun, but I did have some issues with it. 2.5 stars.

The main character was not very likable. She made a lot of bad decisions. I understand that she was influenced by her upbringing to choose the wrong guys and let the good guys go… but unfortunately it didn’t come through very well. The author made it seem like she was experiencing growth every time she went through a new multi-verse of her life, but she was only in the majority of them for like 24 hours. If anything, the only thing it did was allow her to essentially be a fly on the wall of different versions of her life and see why she would or wouldn’t like them. But they all revolved around a guy essentially and whether he was too dull, too ambitious, etc. There was no character growth, the premise of the novel just allowed her a way to see all of the potential guys in her life and help narrow down her choices to what would were best. And you know what? This is fine… it’s not great. But it was still fun. I just have a problem with it being made to look like character growth when it 100% wasn’t.

Another issue is her friends, siblings Bonnie and Ben. We get seamless flashbacks of her life starting from 11 years prior to help us gather what Millie’s life has been like. Which… bottom line from these flashbacks: she chooses the wrong relationships. But we rarely get to see what makes her relationships with Bonnie and Ben so amazing. It’s talked about a lot, but to be honest, very little is actually shown. I liked the flashbacks, but they, again, lacked to show what the author was definitely trying to show: character growth.

When it gets to the end and she finally gets her HEA (I’m sure you can guess who), it was done with very little chemistry and was honestly way too quick. One second they are kissing for the first time and the next second they are talking moving in and marriage. Like, what?

One more issue: the dialogue felt like a lot of monologues versus banter. Not the worst thing, but just didn’t feel as realistic since there wasn’t a lot of back and forth dialogue that is more common in real life.

Besides some glaring issues for me… this was still a fun book. I really enjoyed the premise (I love magical realism). The pacing was great too. A nice, quick read that never dragged.

I was hooked from page one, and could not put this book down once I started. The whole book of what ifs that the main character had in life and was able to see first time what would have happened and how her life would had turned out, only to discover what she really wanted in life was what she already had. I will definitely be looking into other books by C. J. Connolly. This book is great for Sarah Ready fans.

I was never bored with this book. I loved seeing all of the lives that Millie went through and what could happen with one small decision. With one big decision. I will say that I didn't really feel the romance. I could tell Ben was gonna be the one at the end, but at the same time, I didn't feel anything other than friends. The ending was too rushed for me. I feel like adding 15 to even 20 more pages could have added some more enjoyment to me. I loved Millie and I related a lot to her in some ways. I just really enjoyed this novel, but it didn't feel like a five star read to me.

I love a magical realism, reality slip story!
When MC Millie travels to a new reality, after going through the sliding door to her best friend’s house, she lives ‘what if’ after ‘what if, in the hope of finding her perfect life.

This was an easy to read story of love, heartbreak but also friendship. Not only does the plot travel between realities but also alternates between past and present timelines. I loved the shift between now and then and thought it added depth and understanding to the things happening in each new reality.

The pace at the beginning was a bit slow as Millie lived a few of the realities in detail but as the pace picked up the story that unfolded was charming, sometimes chaotic, and whimsical.

I enjoyed how the story didn’t just face on the happier realities but delved into some sad or harder situations. The ending was a pretty quick wrap up but felt right with how the story had gone.

A thoughtful and interesting read!

Let me star by saying, I am such a sucker for multiple timelines/lives and the multiverse. I love stories that ask us to take a leap of faith and just go with it. CJ Connolly is fast becoming one of my top authors in this trope/subgenre. I fell in LOVE with her debut, The Love of My Other Life, and The Love of Her Lives takes a very close second place. I talk about books all the time online, but her books seem to be books that I can't stop talking about with my book friends in real life. I am absolutely smitten with her writing. Anything she releases, you can be sure I'll be reading it. Highly recommend. Five stars.

IT'S ME, HI, I'M THE PROBLEM, IT'S ME!!!!!! The Love of Her Lives written by C.J. Connolly had the potential to be good, but once again, the cheating trope ruined it for me. I absolutely hate the cheating trope more than anything, it's one of my biggest icks in books, why can't people just be honest and truthful with their significant other? Once again, I fell down the rabbit hole with the cute covers and the book not delivering for me. The time traveling in this book was poorly executed in my opinion, it was just all over the place. I couldn't connect with any of the characters at all. I'm going to keep this review short because I don't want to spoil this book for others that want to read it. I wanted to DNF this book more than one time, but of course I had to keep going, but in all honesty, I feel like I wasted my time reading it.

THANK YOU TO NETGALLEY AND JOFFE BOOKS FOR AN ARC OF THIS BOOK IN EXCHANGE FOR AN HONEST REVIEW!!!!!!

"Home is not a place, but a feeling".

Millie Mackenize is a pick me girl, to be honest. Millie wants to love one man, but at the same time she's in love with another man. Millie and Bonnie had the best friendship, I think that was the best part of this book. Their friendship was golden. Ben, Bonnie's brother has feelings for Millie, but Millie has feelings for Stephen, her co-worker who also happens to be married. Millie always has these second thoughts, would life be different if she met Stephen before he married his wife? One day, Millie is heading to Bonnie's lake house for the weekend, but when Millie steps through the basement doors, something extraordinary happens, Millie time travels to another version of her life. I liked Ben, but I don't understand why Millie wouldn't give him another chance if she was so focused on one aspect of their time together?

Millie has a pretty good life with a great job and a great friend in Bonnie but she knows that she is a disaster when it comes to love. She is attracted to the wrong men and is in love with Stephen, who is married to someone else. When she heads to Bonnie’s lake house for the weekend, she finds herself in an alternate universe when she gets a chance to live another version of her life, with Stephen. However, she begins to realise that maybe life with Stephen isn’t what she wanted, as she might have been in love with someone else all along.
An interesting concept of waking up to another life, which has been done before. However, with Millie going through many alternative realities, made for a difference. This made for some quite funny moments as well as times for reflection. I liked Millie as a character and enjoyed seeing her come to the realisation of what truly mattered to her.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

The idea of this book is cool. Millie finds herself travelling through a portal to an alternate reality. She gets the opportunity to explore her different lives throughout the multiverse. You get different timeline POVs, going back to see different scenarios that brought her to the different realities that she travels to. I feel like the romance in the book is definitely less of the upfront focus. Millie was a bit hard for me to connect with and I thought the book ended up being a bit predictable. But all in all, it was written well and I did enjoy the journey.

The premise of the book intrigued me but I just had a difficult time really staying engaged throughout. It was interesting to see her go through the multiverse but some timelines could have been explored a little bit more.

Thank you to NetGalley and Joffe Books for providing an advanced copy of The Love of Her Lives in exchange for an honest review.

I generally write spoiler-free reviews. However, I feel it is necessary that I provide more detail as to why I am giving this book such a low rating. Spoilers ahead- read at your own risk!

*The Love of Her Lives* in an adult romance with a touch of magical realism. This is CJ Connelly’s third book and my first CJ Connelly read.

The notion that making a different decision or bumping into a stranger at a party could completely change the course of your life or the lives of those around you is an interesting concept. Ultimately, I feel like this novel had a lot of potential, but I found the execution was lacking.

There are so many moving part in this story. Millie’s father abandoned her to move back to Ireland. Her mother is a “hippie” and not a supportive figure in her life. Millie considers her best friend, Bonnie’s, parents to be the only true parental figures in her life. Bonnie’s parents are now dead. Millie feels stagnant, and she cannot help but wonder *what if* she romantically connected with her co-worker, Stephen, when they were in college. But when Millie was in college she was actually too concerned with sleeping with her married professor to care about anything else. Oh, and also, why does she not like any of Bonnie’s brother, Ben’s, girlfriends? Why does she find herself thinking about the first time she met Ben so often?

Now, add all of the aforementioned personal issues, character flaws, and dynamics to a plot that is focused on shifting between multiverses where Millie is living very different lives… Needless to say, there was a LOT going on.

BOOK ENDING SPOILERY DETAILS AHEAD

I feel like a lot of the early multiverse jumps ultimately did not contribute to the story. Millie does not get to a universe with Stephen until the 65% mark. The narrative then consists of nearly a dozen universe changes within a couple chapters, most of which continued to even add less to the storyline than the initial chapters.

There was one life that Millie briefly entered in which she was struggling with substance abuse and experiencing homelessness. The way that Millie describes her situation in that life came across very insensitive, stereotypical, and overall extremely judgmental. This was a very short part of the story, but it was enough to make me nearly DNF.

Millie finally begins to realize that Ben is who she belongs with around the 90% mark. After coming to this realization, she is able to go back to her own life and reunite with Bonnie and Ben. She tells Ben her feelings for him, they immediately jump into bed together, and then he asks her to move in with him… That’s the end of the story. There is no time jump or epilogue. No further explanation of how she was able to jump between universes. Millie literally gets back to her own timeline, confesses her love, and he asks her to move in all in the same day!!!

If you are looking for a romance novel that explores the what ifs of life, you may enjoy this novel. However, Millie’s character flaws and its’ many moving parts did not make it a book for me.

good mystery and i loved the friends too. I really enjoyed the romance and how it solved . I also loved reading this author. Really enjoyed her friends. Great book.

the love of her lives was super exciting, i found myself gripped to know what was happening in the next chapter, in her next life!! i loved that we were reading her past life in little flashback snippets leading up to the moments as well as her in the present time visiting all the different multiverses!!

it really does get you thinking, what if? what if i did those or chose that? but after reading this book i also don’t want to know what if, i think i’m good in my life!!😂 i think everything happens for a reason and this book showed that perfectly!

as i was reading through, i had a feeling millie wouldn’t be staying in her life with stephen, once she found it, as i knew who the love of her life actually was!! the harsh realities of her multiverses were so far from what she thought she had wanted, and i loved her having those light bulb moments, and when that big one hit…the ending for me was perfection!!🫶🏼 i’m a sucker for a happy ending and she wrote this one to my standards for sure!!

no spoilers here!!

the only thing i felt was missing was more of the characters personality’s, i love to get to know who i’m reading about - but i guess when you fall into a portal to another universe, there isn’t much time for that!!😉

overall, 3.5 out of 5⭐️

thank you netgalley and joffebooks for this advanced readers copy!!

How would your life be different if you made one small decision differently? The Love of Her Lives explores all the possibilities through Millie’s point of view. Millie accidentally discovers a way to move to alternate realities of her life, and she continues exploring the multiverse in hopes of finding a reality that she likes better than the one she has been in so far.

The author’s note mentions that this book was partly inspired by The Midnight Library, and I definitely see some similarities, but it is also entirely its own book. I really enjoyed the story alternating between flashbacks to important moments in Millie’s life and various alternate realities of her life. Millie is in love with her (married) co-worker, and she hopes to find a reality in which she ends up with him. Will it be all she ever hoped for? Or would she be happier with one of the other partners she had throughout the multiverse?

I have found myself thinking about this book many times since finishing it. I find it so interesting to think about how life would be different with just one different decision, and this book is the perfect avenue to explore that through a fictional story. Thank you to NetGalley, Joffe Books, and C.J. Connolly for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really love books with past and present timelines. It’s no surprise I enjoyed this book. I found it to be well written and also heart warming. The characters were likeable and the plot was interesting.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Three and a half stars.

Millie has everything, a job she loves, a great BFF, a fabulous apartment. Unfortunately, she's in love with her very married work colleague, Stephen who she met at college and she often wonders what would have happened if she had chosen to join the astrological society at college with him instead of the a capella group. In fact, she and Stephen used to discuss the possibility of endless alternate realities.

Going to her best friend Bonnie's family home for the long weekend, Millie goes in through the basement door and finds herself in an alternate reality, one in which Bonnie no longer owns the house and Millie is married to a guy she briefly dated in college. Once Millie gets her head around the fact that she has somehow entered a parallel universe through the basement door in Bonnie's house she realises it could be possible to find a universe in which she and Stephen dated and got married. In each parallel universe Millie sees her life through fresh eyes and tries to help her other self, to escape addiction, or an abusive marriage, etc. Always, she checks to see if she and Bonnie are still friends, because Bonnie, her brother Ben, and their parents (Until their tragic deaths) are the closest thing to real family Millie has ever known.

This is told partly through flashbacks to key events in Millie's life, starting with when she first met Bonnie, and partly through each of Millie's alternate lives, although the blurb makes it sound like she steps straight into a world where she and Stephen are together. I liked all of this, because I'm a sucker for things like Sliders and Stargate and Quantum Leap. However, and trying not to be spoilery, it was immediately obvious to me who Millie would end up with and therefore some of the surprise was lost, it needed to be more subtle. So, at first I was going to give this three stars because of the lack of suspense about Millie's MMC but I really liked the rest of the plot and would otherwise have given it four stars, so we end up at three and a half stars.

So, if you ever wondered what would have happened if you took that job, caught that bus, accepted that invite, you'' love this.

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley.

This book had it all heartbreak, friendship and true love. I enjoyed reading this book and I loved the main character. It was a wonderful story of what true love is.

Thank you net galley and publisher for this ARC. I enjoyed this plot and all the what if scenarios. I found it a bit predictable but I still enjoyed the story.